The fact that a sim like LFS can generate such a complete polarisation of responses from an informative, reasoned and above all involved update report is, quite frankly, a credit to Scawen and the crew of Devs and beta testers. I can easily understand why big production and development houses loose interest in the constant bickering and nit picking that they reseive from half baked, middle intelligence numpty's who couldn't string a piece of code together if it was written out for them. Nothing in life is free. Nothing is given to you without someone somewhere having too foot the bill. Big publishers get that bill payed for by numpty's when they fork out 30-40 quid for some showy bit of graphical wizzadry that is played through in five minutes flat and then recieves no further updates. The little guys can't work like that. They survive by doing what they can and when they can, and when they feel they have a product that is worthy of being sold, then they will put a few quid price tag on it and hope poeple appreaciate the effort that is put into it. LFS has had a lead in time of years. And it's still in development. We are in the fortunate position of seeing a quite franky, astounding piece of programming being put together bit by bit, with the emphasis on being that if the foundations need to be redug, then they will be to make the final product even better.
By paying our money, for LFS, in my view, we are not neccesarily buying a kick arse race sim that is unrivalled in it's field. What we are buying into is a patronage of something that is not 'big' business. It's not grind house developing. It's not a glamour model, all big in the chest but short in the head. It's brains before beauty. It's intellgence before cras kowtowing to ignorant consumers who don't understand what they have on their desktops.
There is an ethos behind LFS that does not follow the received wisdom of game development. It's never been, and I hope it never will be, a purely commercial enterprise. Scawen is a bloke. A normal bloke with a family and a very understanding wife who has a mortgage to pay and mouths to feed. I have patronised him for the content that I already have. I fell in love with LFS not for the way it plays as much as the very fact that it has such a small development team that seem to be completly dedicated to making this racing sim we all know and love the best racing sim that has ever been made. I am sure the end game being that the LFS physics engine will be used for many years to come under licence. And in that, we can all say that we where there at the beginning. We watched and played as it was all put together. Our input, made this sim the way it will be.
For someone to say that we should model the devs in CSS and shoot them, is so abhorent that it defy's explanation. IT has no basis in reality, as the author of said comment proabably has no basis in reality. You do not deserve 'free' stuff. It is not a 'right' to recieve updates for free or in the time scale that you require. But it is the 'right' of the Devs to dictate how and when and for how much they release sections of their hard born work.
For those who feel that LFS's development is not keeping pace with your desires, then I urge you to spend some time developing your own Racing Sim so that you can prove your point. Maybe you can do it better, maybe you won't do it any worse, but my bet is, you can't do it at all. And that, at the end of the day, is all you buy of anything. You pay your money for something that you can't, or won't, do yourself. The devs are adults. And I know a good proportion of LFS lovers are of an adult and reasoned persuasion. I urge the flamers, the trolls and the down right rude and obnoxious to take a good look around and readdress some attitudes. Because if you share the attitudes that you have on here in Real Life then you won't be getting very far. For a start shooting people is generally considered a very bad thing and gets you a life stretch at her majesty's pleasure.
So, to end my monologue, I urge in you, alll of you from both sides of the coin to find some maturity, some understanding and less hostility. It will all come good in the end.
And to return to my first point. I think, I hope, the devs look at the passion they invoke from their drop in the software ocean as a kinda back handed compliment. I don't see quite as much vehmenence on Eve's boards. (actually, maybe I do. Hehe).
Nuf sed. Keep up the good work boys.